The embodiments described herein relate generally to delivering energy to an electric vehicle and, more particularly, to metering and automatically charging for energy delivered and parking time at a parking meter.
As electric vehicles and/or hybrid electric vehicles gain popularity, an associated need to accurately manage delivery of electrical energy to them has increased. Moreover, a need to recognize revenue owed to the utility that provides the energy has been created by the increased use of such vehicles.
At least some known parking metering systems enable a customer to pay a parking fee without inserting money in a coin drop. Such systems enable, for example, a customer to identify their vehicle and control payment of the parking fee using a device, such as a cellular phone. In at least some such systems, a parking fee register tracks a parking fee based on time, wherein the fee is determined based on a vehicle code that is read by a control device. The control device also reports payment status and/or other related information to and from the parking fee register. However, such parking metering systems do not enable delivery of energy to an electric vehicle.
Moreover, at least some known automatic debiting systems for use in payment of parking fees enable a customer to pay the parking fee without inserting money in a coin drop. For example, some known systems use a stationary radio frequency (RF) transmitter unit that transmits a parking fee rate and/or a maximum parking period to a transponder carried within a vehicle. The transponder includes a memory that may be preloaded with a prepaid credit, and after the vehicle is parked, the transponder is activated to communicate with the RF transmitter to facilitate automatic debiting of a parking fee from the prepaid credit stored in the transponder memory. However, known systems do not enable delivery of energy to an electric vehicle after recognizing the transponder.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide systems and methods for delivering energy to an electric vehicle while parked at a parking meter, metering an amount of energy delivered to the electric vehicle and/or an amount of time the electric vehicle is parked at the parking meter, and adjusting an account according to a transaction amount that is based on the amount of energy delivered and/or the parking cost.